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Jason shrugged. “I’ve always liked basketball.”
Since Ben was the only son, Jason was the closest thing to a brother to him. He wanted to support his cousin, and for the first time, Ben realized how frustrated his own father must have felt, seeing a family member who wasn’t living up to his potential.
“All right, let’s talk about it later,” Ben said. He wasn’t going to discuss the matter with Jake around.
Taking up his pasta bowl, Ben reheated the food in the microwave. Several texts chimed on his phone.
“Dude, you need to learn how to take a vacation,” Derek said.
Ben scanned the messages to see that none were urgent.
“Did you know that none of the women have their cellphones?” Ben asked the other guys. “The Scarlet Auction took them.”
“So? Sluts don’t need cellphones,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” Derek seconded, “phones would just be a distraction.”
“It’s to protect the privacy of the bidders.”
“What about the privacy of the women?” Ben inquired.
“Given who we are, we’re more likely to be the victims of blackmail and shit like that.”
“A lot of the bidders are married men,” Derek added, “though if I ever get married, it’s gonna be an open marriage, know what I mean?”
The microwave finished just as Ben reached his tolerance level for conversation with overgrown frat boys. He took the bowl out of the microwave and headed upstairs to see how Kimani was doing.
Another text came in as he climbed the stairs. It was from Stephens, his special projects manager based in the US. It read:
Got the info you wanted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Since the items they had bought in town were in his room, Kimani decided to take a shower. She’d had one yesterday but didn’t have the conditioner she needed. Conditioning was important given that she had styled her hair to appeal to as much of the audience of bidders as possible at the Scarlet Auction. If she had hair like Lisa’s, she could probably go days without washing or conditioning.
The shower felt great, a steamy oasis from the testosterone that ran the place. When she emerged and wrapped a towel around herself, she felt rejuvenated and focused on her task at hand. She was going to get the story that would land her a job at the Tribune. She wasn’t going to let a jerk like Jake get in the way.
Ben, however, was a different story. He got in the way—in a big way. She shouldn’t be letting him distract her. How could she be so easily seduced by him? And here she thought she was different from the other women. While it was true that she didn’t have Claire’s romantic fancies of falling in love during her week as a sex slave, she should have been able to resist Ben’s seduction.
And don’t forget you’re mad at him for leaving you high and dry—correction, high and wet.
Recalling how his fingers had felt against her, how his digits probed places that sent currents zinging up her spine, warmed her as much as the steam in the bathroom. She should never have let him touch her in the first place. She had known that doing so was stumbling off a cliff.
But he had felt so good. And it wasn’t just how he caressed her. When she had lain against him on the patio chair last night, his body had provided a warm security that comforted as much as it titillated.
That was it. She was grateful to Ben. Finding herself in a high-stress situation, stuck in the boondocks of Northern California, and worried for her welfare after Jake had struck her across the cheek, she saw Ben as her protector. Yesterday, he had lent her clothes, saw that she had lunch, and allowed her to nap in his bed.
But he had his asshole moments. He wasn’t a pure knight in shining armor. He had bought her for sex, after all. And not just vanilla sex. He wanted her submission.
She wiped the condensation off the bathroom mirror and looked at herself. How far was she willing to go for her story? She didn’t have a problem going undercover, but she hadn’t planned on having sex. She had planned to test the man who won her to see what would happen if she said no to something or decided she wanted to back out of the arrangement altogether. She may have consented to participate in the Scarlet Auction, but a woman had a right to change her mind.
However, she already knew the Auction had set things up so it was unlikely a woman would back out. There were the imposing contracts and nondisclosure agreements signed before multiple attorneys, the nonrefundable application fee of two thousand dollars, and the fact that a woman who didn’t complete the entire week to the satisfaction of the purchaser would not receive a penny.
So far Ben hadn’t pushed himself onto her, but a man could only be so patient. She sensed he had gone easy on her their first day together, but he was making his expectations known.
It was bad enough she had compromised the story by becoming sexually involved with one of the subjects, but she was determined to get the best story that she could and let Sam, the editor of the Tribune, sort it out.
Best not to make things more complicated, however, between herself and Ben. Tonight, she would focus on the other women. They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk during dinner because they didn’t know if they were allowed to. She had asked Claire, in a whisper, how she was doing. The young blond had smiled in return. Kimani hoped that meant Jake hadn’t hit her. Lisa, a very slender woman with long black hair, and Ryan, a lithe redhead and perhaps the most confident of the women, seemed in good spirits.
